Sunday, Bloody Sunday
by xahra99
Summary: According to contemporary accounts. no vampires fought in the First World War. Mitchell, Herrick and the Somme.


Sunday Bloody Sunday

A Being Human fan fiction by xahra99

It wasn't a Sunday when Mitchell died, but it might as well have well been. Exact dates, exact times, were meaningless by then.

The year was 1918. The place was the Somme.

Mitchell was twenty five, one of the oldest men in his battalion, and it no longer seemed strange that people he had never met would try to kill him. He'd expected death. He just didn't expect it to happen the way that it did.

A soldier's calendar was divided into slow days, when he gossiped and drilled, dug and bailed water and burned or froze in the meantime according to the weather, and days of frantic action. There were days that passed in the blink of an eye and days that dragged on for years. The day Mitchell died was a nasty, slick day, a violent day, a foggy day thick with cordite smoke and guns and explosions.

It was his unit's tenth day in the frontline trenches, tenth out of fourteen. The advance started at dawn.

Mitchell went over the top at quarter past five in the morning, clutching his rifle and shouting with the rest of his men to drown out the sharp rat-tat-tat sound of the machine-guns. He felt fear at first, but once he'd run two paces out of the trench, the fear had been replaced by an unthinking numbness. Figures beside him stopped and fell or vanished into the mist. They were not real. They were shadows in a storm of bullets, shrapnel and soil. It was an impossible dream, as if reality was flexible, and it went on for days, weeks, months, years.

Or so it seemed to Mitchell.

It was well past dawn by the time the battle thinned out and Mitchell stumbled to a halt in the mud.

He had begun the attack in a state of unthinking bravery. He ended it in a state of profound ignorance, standing in the fields of the Somme and wondering which way to go.

He didn't know where he was, or which way he was supposed to be heading. All he knew was that it was a bad idea to stay still. He picked a direction at random and set off through the craters. After five minutes of walking, he caught sight of the wood.

It was a pathetic sight; not at all what Mitchell would have called a wood before the war, but the half-acre of splintered pine trees was the first bit of green Mitchell had seen in months. He thought he remembered a wood close to the British lines, some way to the south of his platoon's trenches. He was sure that it had been marked on the maps his unit had been shown before the advance. The silk cloths printed with contours and neat arrowed directions bore little resemblance to the pitted fields in which he now found himself.

Mitchell headed for the trees.

Even though he was fairly sure of his direction, he hesitated on the fringes of the wood. Woods were bad news. Trees were targets for snipers to aim at. But the air was quiet, and the wood felt...different.

It felt..._safe_.

Mitchell had trusted his instincts for three years. It was a pity that they were wrong.

A quarter of an hour later, he was standing in the centre of the trees. The morning sun glinted low through the pines. Mitchell crouched, ducking under splintered branches to minimize his silhouette against the light. He headed for what he thought were the British lines, moving in a wide circle. The scent of pine needles filled his nose as his boots crushed the powdery soil. As he crept along he wondered if he would ever be able to walk in the woods again without scanning for enemies.

He used his bayonet to brush a branch aside.

Danger aside, the wood wasn't such a bad place. The shell holes were widely spaced, and there weren't too many bodies in the trees. It was as safe as anywhere, which was to say, not much. The air smelt of gunpowder and death. Mitchell heard the sound of far-off gunfire and then a low moaning.

"_Kamerad_!"

Mitchell had seen far too much fighting to wonder why an enemy soldier would be calling for help from the opposite side. Dying men called for anybody who would listen.

He followed the sound cautiously, stepping past the corpse of an English soldier to his right. Twigs caught at his legs. His own breath sounded harsh in his ears. He heard the sound of machine gun fire again and thought that maybe the wood wasn't as safe as it felt.

"_Kamerad_!" the man moaned. His voice was harsh and desperate.

Mitchell crept towards the sound.

The first thing he saw was a pile of jerry-cans stacked between the trees. The second thing he saw was a small group of soldiers. Mitchell raised his bayonet. He lowered it with a surge of relief as he recognized British uniforms. Two officers stood with their backs to Mitchell. A third man crouched over a fallen figure on the floor. He wore a corporal's insignia stitched to a civilian-issue greatcoat. The coat spread around the dying German like a tent.

Mitchell moved closer, carefully placing one foot in front of another. He made no sound over the chaos of gunfire, but the corporal looked up. His gaze fixed on Mitchell.

The crouching man's eyes were black.

At first Mitchell thought that it was some kind of horrible injury. He'd seen men blinded by gas or by wounds, after all. This man's face was unmarked, but where the whites and iris of his eyes should have been was a pure, glistening black. The dark openings made his face resemble a living skull.

Mitchell blinked.

The man's eyes did not change.

This did not particularly shock Mitchell. The soldiers at Mons had seen angels. It was just his luck that he'd find monsters instead.

The two officers turned slowly around. Light shone on their faces as the dying man on the ground flung out a hand.

"Kamerad!"

Mitchell glanced down at the German. The soldier gurgled. His head tipped back, pale against the dust and mud of the forest floor. His helmet fell back and flipped over, rolled, once, twice and was still.

The corporal looked down at the corpse, then across to the nearest officer, then back to Mitchell. His eyes were normal now.

The officers faced him. They were an unmatched pair; one lieutenant, one captain. The lieutenant was closest. He wore a neatly pressed shirt, a khaki coat and a worried frown. He was middle aged and he had the rosy cheeks of a butcher. Ginger hair straggled from beneath his cap. Despite his lower rank, he had an aura of blithe self-confidence.

All three of them stared at Mitchell.

The corporal smiled. It was not a nice smile.

Mitchell took a step back, and then he realized that he was being stupid. The men were on his side. This was war. He opened his mouth to say 'Sir', but kept a tight hold of his weapon as he did so.

The lieutenant stepped forwards. His eyes darkened then, and he roared.

Mitchell recalled very little of what happened afterwards, but he remembered that it hurt.

He woke in a pile of corpses with a bird pecking at the woolen strings of his balaclava. It fluttered away as he gasped for air, squawking in indignation. Somebody else's head rested on his right shoulder. Mitchell turned his head to look and black wings beat against his forehead as the bird moved. It settled close enough that Mitchell could have reached out and touched it. The bright eyes regarded Mitchell as he swallowed. His mouth tasted of blood and soil. He was cold. His neck hurt.

_My neck..._

Mitchell pulled his balaclava aside and ran a filthy hand over the left side of his neck. His fingers found two tiny wounds. Each one was smaller than the nail of his little finger, and each one hurt far more than he would have believed possible.

Mitchell let the balaclava drop back against his neck and looked around. He lay on his back with the heavy weight of a dead man pinning him down. Pine trees spread above his head. It was eerily quiet.

The crow settled on the man's torn epaulette and croaked at him, mouth wide. It seemed fearless, accusing. Its beak was a jagged V, like the tip of a bayonet.

Mitchell tried to sit up.

Seconds later, he wished he hadn't. The movement brought back a barrage of memories.

"Oh... God."

The memories were like nothing he'd experienced before. They were more solid than night mares and more coherent than hallucinations. There were men. Men with blank faces. Men with sticks and men with ropes. There was smoke and fire and all the terror Mitchell had stowed away as he ran over the pitted mud of the battlefield with the rest of his unit. It was the scariest thing Mitchell had ever seen, and it didn't seem to matter that it was all in his head.

He realized that something had gone very badly wrong.

The memories swept over him again. Mitchell hardly noticed when the crow flapped away. He didn't notice the tall figure that bent over him until it grabbed his shoulder.

"It's all right," a reassuring voice told him.

Mitchell shook his head, because it wasn't, no, it wasn't, and it would never be alright again, because sweet Jesus, he'd died...

He'd died...

"Is this shellshock?" he managed to blurt out, "Sir?"

The man wore the epaulettes of a first class lieutenant and looked somehow familiar. "No. It's not shellshock. He grabbed the soldier on Mitchell's chest and tugged him away without a hint of effort. "Let's get you out of there."

Mitchell frowned up at him as the pressure on his chest lifted. There was an unpleasant memory connected with this man. Something bad...

He shook his head to clear it and put a tentative hand on the ground. The gluey mud tugged at the wool of his gloves. "I thought I died."

The lieutenant regarded Mitchell gravely as he tugged himself to his feet."You did."

"No." Mitchell denied automatically. "No. I'm alive. I'm here." His back felt strange. Something was missing. He glanced around, only to find that he'd lost his regulation knapsack. And if he'd lost his knapsack, he'd lost his waterproof cape, his gas mask, his socks....

Lieutenant Priestley was going to _kill_ him if he ever made it back to the trenches...

"You're not alive, soldier," the officer said.

Mitchell thought it an absurd statement. He stood in the Somme mud, wearing his soaking uniform and wondering how the hell he was ever going to explain himself to his commanding officer. "Where's the front line?" He looked wildly around. Every direction looked equally uninviting.

The lieutenant put out a gentle hand to restrain him. "Stop, man," he said. "You're _dead_."

It didn't make sense to Mitchell and then, awfully, it did. For so long now he'd been looking without seeing, acting without thinking, moving without feeling. And for the first time in months he was not hungry, not thirsty, not cold, and not afraid.

He felt...different.

Mitchell looked down at himself. His gloves were fouled with mud. He wiped his hand down his trousers automatically. There was a trickle of blood running over his wrist. He raised his hand to his mouth and licked at it. Under the faint taint of soil, the blood tasted thick, metallic. "Then what am I?" He frowned, Catholic upbringing rising to the fore. "Is this Hell?"

"In a literal or a figurative sense?" the lieutenant asked dryly.

"You _what_?"

"It's not hell. This is real life. Even better, it's a war. And we love wars." He smiled widely.

"What?" Mitchell said suspiciously? "Who are you?" He saw his rifle a meter away among some fallen branches. It smelt like it had been fired. He inched towards it.

The lieutenant held out a hand. "I'm Herrick," He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. "And _that_ is Seth and _that_," he pointed at the tall and very young captain behind Seth, "is Casson." He cocked his head in a quick and jerky movement that reminded Mitchell of the crow. "I must say you're bearing up rather well, given the circumstances."

Mitchell's eyes slid to the rifle again.

Herrick waved a hand. "Go ahead."

Mitchell bent and picked up the gun. Its polished stock felt instantly familiar in his hands. He cradled the weapon close. "And the circumstances are?"

"You're a vampire?" Herrick said bluntly.

"I'm a _what_?"

"Vampire," Herrick said as Seth snickered behind him. "You know. Creatures of the night. The walking undead. Drinkers of _blood_, soldier. _Human_ blood. Vampires."

"I know what a vampire is, all right." Mitchell's aunty had owned a copy of Bram Stoker's _Dracula_.

Herrick shrugged and cocked his head. "Fine. Then I'll keep this short. You're one of us now, Mitchell. And we...whatever else you say about us, we protect our own. "

"Save the story," Mitchell said. "I've got to get back to my regiment."

"You're not going anywhere."

"Try me," Mitchell snapped. He raised the rifle. He could have been court-marshaled, could have been shot for threatening a superior officer, but nothing about the situation even remotely seemed normal any more.

Herrick raised his hands in surrender. He was smiling. "You're the boss."

Mitchell kept his rifle trained upon Herrick. He glanced round, frantically trying to get his bearings. Fog drifted between the trees. He couldn't see anything. He felt tired.

Behind Herrick, Seth snickered again.

"Which way, soldier?" Herrick said calmly. Too calmly, for a man with a rifle aimed at him.

"Don't try anything, Herrick. Sir."

"I wouldn't dream of it."

Mitchell's legs felt like lead. The smoke wasn't clearing. In fact, it seemed to be getting thicker. He lodged the rifle in the crook of his arm and ran one hand across his stomach. Was he wounded? He couldn't see anything.

"Which way, soldier?" Herrick repeated harshly.

Mitchell turned. The world spun around him. He felt the rifle slide to the floor. "I don't...know."

Herrick's voice seemed to come from a long way away. "Seth!" An arm pressed against Mitchell's shoulder, holding him up.

A grunt.

"He needs to feed. Get him something, will you?"

"I don't know why you bothered, anyway. Last thing this world needs is another bloody Mick."

"Seth, you _never_ know why we bother. And you never will if you keep asking bloody stupid questions like that."

There was a shout.

"Found one?" Herrick snapped. "Good. Then bring him up here."

Mitchell spiraled off into the fog for a while. He woke to someone shaking him.

"Ready?" somebody asked.

Mitchell opened his eyes. The world was stretched out, tight as a piece of barbed wire. Seth and the other man, the one Merrick had called Casson, appeared from the mist, supporting a third person between them. The new arrival was a British soldier. He was in bad shape, bleeding from a dozen shrapnel wounds. One of his legs hung limp at the knee. Mitchell stared at the injury. If he looked closely, he could see shards of shattered bone protruding from red pulp.

Mitchell licked his lips. His mouth felt heavy, awkward.

He heard Herrick's approving chuckle. "Go on, lad."

The world focused in as Mitchell stared at the oozing flesh. He only raised his eyes when the men were right in front of him. When had they moved?

"Hurry up," Seth snapped. "He's getting heavy."

"Take your time," Herrick told him.

Seth pushed the wounded man forwards. The soldier's body cannoned into Mitchell. Herrick abruptly let go of Mitchell's shoulders. The wounded soldier clung to Mitchell's uniform. Neither of them could support themselves. The result was a macabre dance as both men tried to keep their balance in the mud.

Mitchell looked the wounded soldier in the face as they struggled. He noticed that the soldier had blue eyes, that he was younger than Mitchell, and that he smelt scared. Mitchell opened his mouth to tell the man that it would be all right, and then he noticed that the soldier smelt of blood. The scent was so strong that Mitchell didn't pause to ask anything else. He tugged the man towards him and buried his teeth in his neck.

Afterwards, when the man was dead and the world had stopped spinning around him, Mitchell sat heavily down on the edge of a shell crater and buried his face in his hands. He rubbed his chin with his uniform sleeve. It came away smeared with blood. He didn't even want to think what his face would look like.

Herrick lowered himself down beside him. "Cheer up," he said breezily. "You get used to it."

Mitchell just looked at him.

Herrick gestured at the cratered battlefield. "You got used to _this_, didn't you? How can anything be worse?"

"How can it be worse?" Mitchell snapped. "I just killed a man. I drank his _blood, _for God's sake_._"

Herrick smiled.

"Is this what I'll become? A murderer?"

"Not always," Herrick said. "But it's something we encourage."

"Why?"

"It makes life much, much easier. We need to feed, and they're soldiers. They came here to die."

"Not like this!"

"Does it matter? They're still dead!"

"What about the other side? Are there..." Mitchell swallowed. "Are there vampires there too?"

"Probably. Who knows? Who cares? We're not on any side."

"But you're _English_," Mitchell said stupidly.

"Let the humans fight. They die, we feed. Welcome to our world, soldier." Herrick clapped Mitchell on the shoulder. "It's a great time to be a vampire. The sheep can gain their little victories. We've got all the time in the world."

"Time?"

"Yes. Don't you know you'll live forever? Barring accidents, of course. Great life, isn't it?"

Mitchell wiped his mouth. More blood came away. He scrubbed at his face until it smarted. When he was satisfied that he looked human again, he looked at Herrick. "Maybe I don't want to."

Herrick sighed. "That's a pity. You know, I could have offered immortality to any man on the line and he'd have jumped at the chance. But I picked you."

"He picked you," Seth growled. He reached over and slammed his hand down on Mitchell's helmet. Alive, Mitchell would have shrugged the insult off. Dead, he reached up and grabbed Seth's wrist. Even Herrick looked a little surprised, though not as surprised as Mitchell.

"Get off me." Seth hissed.

Mitchell opened his hand and let Seth go.

Herrick laughed. "Newborn and he's already got the drop on you, Seth. Best be careful."

Seth's only response was an inarticulate growl.

"He's jealous," Casson said quietly.

"He's an idiot." Herrick said. He clapped Mitchell on the shoulder again. "So, any questions?"

"How long?"

"How long what?"

"How long will I live for?"

"Now there's a question," Herrick said mildly. He leant back against the crater, heedless of his coat. If he hadn't been a bloodsucking monster, Mitchell thought that he might have made a decent commanding officer. "Of course, you've heard the joke."

Mitchell was beginning to feel that the joke was on him "What joke?"

Herrick sighed. "The one about the Ploegsteert and the Kemmel trenches? No? Then I'll explain. A subaltern serving in the Ploegsteert trench visits his comrade in the line near Kemmel. "You'll notice," says the Kemmel man, "that my men are planting daffodils on the parapets to hide 'em. We're hoping to make the line quite invisible come spring." He cocked his head at Mitchell. "Ring any bells?"

Mitchell shook his head.

"Anyway, the Ploegsteert man just looks at him and replies "Well, you lot are a bunch of bleeding optimists."" Herrick paused. "'Ask me why."

"Why?"

"Well, the Ploegsteert subaltern says, get this, ""My we've planted acorns in front of our trench."" Herrick laughed. "Acorns. Imagine that!"

Mitchell rolled his eyes. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"I mean," Herrick said, "that you will be around to watch those oaks grow up. And you'll still be alive once they're dead. In fact, you'll still be living once the smallest seedling from their branches is dead too."

Mitchell stared down at his boots. The dead soldier lay sprawled at his feet. His out-flung arm nearly touched Mitchell's boot. Mitchell kicked it away.

"Look at it this way," Herrick said, more kindly. "You're immortal.'

At that moment, Mitchell felt like he wanted nothing more than to die and be done with it. "Wonderful," he said flatly.

"I knew a 'thank you, officer' was too much to ask." Herrick replied. "But maybe you can use your...new-found gift to help your men."

Mitchell gestured to the dead soldier at his feet. "Help? How will this _help_?"

"You can't be killed, save for a stake to the heart. But it's a very small organ, relatively speaking. Easy to miss. And anyway, just think what you can do. Kill only Germans, if you like. Makes no difference to us, so long as you keep yourself fed. We need you, Mitchell. I see a bright future for you. Wasn't that what they told you when you joined up? Honor, glory? You can have it all. Just stay with us."

"Do I have any choice?"

Herrick smiled. "Not much." He stretched his arms and looked out over the blasted countryside. "We'll leave soon," he observed, and turned back to Mitchell. "Irish, right? You volunteered?"

"Yes."Mitchell said bitterly.

"Anybody left in the old country? Relatives, cousins?"

"Not anymore."

"Perfect. Connections make things more difficult." Herrick stood up. He brushed the mud from his coat and turned to Casson. "See? I told you he was a good one. "

Casson stood rigidly, as smart as any officer Mitchell had ever seen. "You did, sir."

Seth sloped up, scowling, and Herrick smiled. He walked a few paces away and turned back to Mitchell. ""I'll have you transferred. To my unit. We want to keep an eye on you, Mitchell. Someone like you, you could go far."

Seth dug the toe of his boot into Mitchell's back. "Bastard," he remarked conversationally.

"Seth?"

Seth gave up kicking Mitchell and turned to the older vampire. "Yes, Herrick?"

"I want you to go to his..." he paused and pointed at Mitchell, "What's your unit?"

"Second Royal Dublins." Mitchell said automatically.

"Fusiliers?"

Mitchell nodded.

"Head to the Dub, Seth. Find this man's commanding officer and tell him I want him transferred to the First Hertfordshires. Plus a commendation, maybe, for bravery." He winked. "Extreme courage in the face of danger. Something like that."

"I don't want it." Mitchell said automatically.

Herrick smiled. "Again, no choice."

Seth saluted at Herrick, hissed at Mitchell, and hurried off. He had reached the lip of the furthest shell crater and was nearly out of sight before he paused. "What's his name?"

Herrick held a finger up in the air. "Right!" He held out a hand to Mitchell. "What's your name, lad?"

"Mitchell," Mitchell said slowly. "Sergeant John Mitchell." He took Herrick's hand and stumbled to his feet.

"Mitchell,' Herrick said thoughtfully, "Right." He turned back to Seth. "See to it!'

Seth hurried off into the trees and the fog.

"And you," Herrick said to Mitchell, "You, you come with me."

They shall not grow old, as we who are left grow old,

Age shall not weary them, nor the age condemn

At the going down of the sun and in the morning

We shall remember them.

_- For the Fallen_, by Lawrence Binyon,

Author's Note: No disrespect is intended towards any veterans of the Great War by this story.

Although the Somme is mainly know for the great battles of 1915-16, this story is set in the midst of the First Battle of the Somme in 1918. It was extremely unlikely that there were any woods left in the surrounding area at that time after three years of shelling but hey, artistic license. This was due to the fact that the closest emblem I could find to Mitchell's shoulder badge in the program that fit his Irish accent was that of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers, who with the 1st Hertfordshire played an important part in the Battle of St Quentin. St Quentin itself was part of the greater 1918 struggle for the Somme. The helmet Mitchell wears in his flashback was only issued to troops after 1916.

According to contemporary accounts, no vampires fought in the First World War.


End file.
